


Continuity Plan

by misaffection



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, post series 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 06:07:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1156040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misaffection/pseuds/misaffection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For all she's quiet and shy, there is an inner strength that he's relied on more than once. To find that gone both rattles and fills him with righteous fury.</p><p>Possible spoilers for His Last Bow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Continuity Plan

“We've got a client.”

The room doesn't respond to Sherlock's statement. He opens his eyes and takes in the empty chair. It's so easy to forget he's no longer got an audience. John is... actually, he has no idea where John is or what he's doing. Though it's a fair deduction that he's trying to patch his marriage before the baby comes along.

Hesitant steps halt outside the door. The knock is so soft, he could miss it. Sherlock pulls his long limbs out of his chair. A faint fragrance reaches his nose. Gardenia. Vaguely familiar, but he can't place it. Not until the door swings open.

She doesn't quite meet his eyes. Not abnormal behaviour, but the tension quivering through her is different. He notes the rest: pale skin, dark shadows beneath her eyes, her pinched mouth. Something is wrong and his heart beats a little faster for that realisation.

“Molly.”

“I wasn't going to come.”

“I know.” Her hair is pulled in a ponytail, but there's little care to it. The perfume hides the fact she's not showered this morning. Not like her. Not at all. “I'm glad you did.”

Her gaze snaps up, surprise widening her eyes. “Glad?” she echoes, strained.

“That whatever the problem is, you know that you can trust me.”

Molly sags. Sherlock scoots to her side, grabbing her elbow before she collapses. Worry surges. For all she's quiet and shy, there is an inner strength that he's relied on more than once. To find that gone both rattles and fills him with righteous fury. Whatever – _whomever_ – has frightened her so will pay dearly.

“Molly,” he says. She jerks her head, a sharp nod of acknowledgement, and then pulls an envelope from her coat pocket. It's large, white, the paper thick. There is no address, no stamp; nothing of note. Sherlock slips the contents out.

A photograph of Molly with Jim Moriarty, a news article about Moriarty's death, and a postcard with the London Eye on the front are all held together with a paper clip. Sherlock pulls the card free and turns it over. There's a date and a time written in red, with a smiley face underneath.

The same sort of smiley face that Moriarty drew on the casing surrounding the Royal Jewels, under the legend “Get Sherlock”.

“He's dead,” Molly says. “Isn't he?”

Jim Moriarty had stood on the roof of a building, put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Sherlock can still remember the sound of it, the amount of blood. He wants to reassure her, but he'd never checked; too sure the man was dead.

But he himself had jumped off that roof, and here he was.

“I don't know,” he confesses and drops into his own chair. “I should, but I don't.”

Molly takes in a deep breath and looks up. The fear is gone, replaced by determination and the same fierceness that resulted in her slapping him three times. She's quite a punch for something so small.

“Then I guess we'd better find out.”

“We?”

“Oh, come on, Sherlock – if this is from Jim, then he'd know full well the only person I'd take it to is you. This is aimed at you as much as it is me.” Molly gives a hollow laugh. “Consider the theatre of it: the woman who betrayed him and the man she handed him to. The snipers were about stopping you. _This_ is about revenge.”

“If it is Moriarty.” He feels the need to remind her that it might not be. Or is it himself he's trying to reassure now? “How does one survive a bullet to the brain?”

She knots her fingers together and considers them. Sherlock waits. He's clever – very, very clever – but Molly is as well, in her own way. She's proven that before.

“It doesn't have to be him. Not in person. Jim... he always had a continuity plan, Sherlock. You know that. That's why you had to die for two years. This could be something he'd put into place before then. Days, or weeks, maybe even months.” She sighs and meets his eyes. “He might have been insane, but he wasn't stupid, and I have a seriously bad taste in men.”

“Yes,” he says, then thinks that probably wasn't the right thing to say. “About the plan, I mean.”

A smile ghosts across her lips. “Liar,” she whispers.

“Either way, making this meeting could be dangerous.”

“More than likely.”

“Deadly dangerous.”

“You've died once. You ought to be good at it by now.”

He snorts. Yes, this is the Molly Hooper he knows best, though she's grown in the two years he's been gone. She's harder, stronger, more certain. Still, there is a real possibility that she could end up dead, and that... unsettles him.

“I mean it, Molly. Whoever sent this envelop, it's not anyone nice. You could be killed.”

Molly stands. “Yes, I know. And I'm scared, Sherlock. But what alternative have I got? Go home and cower under my bed covers? What if no one turns up? Oh, I imagine you could track them eventually, but in the meantime I'd get to spend every day looking over my shoulder. That's no way to live, is it?”

He can't help but smile. “Oh, Molly. Quiet little Molly. Moriarty got you very wrong. _I_ got you wrong. You're no mouse, are you? You're a lion.”

Colour floods her cheeks and she drops her gaze. “Shut up.”

Sherlock laughs. He gets to his feet and pulls her into a hug. She squeaks in surprise, her body stiffening. Then one arm creeps around his waist. It tightens and he hears a soft, “Thank you,” before she wriggles out of his embrace and strides to the door.

Pauses.

“Are we meeting there or here?” she asks.

“Here. I want to ensure you're not followed.” Or worse.

Molly nods and then, without a backwards glance, slips out of the room. Sherlock listens to her footsteps descend, hears the front door open and then close. He turns a little, so the window is at the corner of his eye. He wants to watch her go. Just so he knows she's safe.

That, and nothing more.


End file.
